Jeremiah 29: 11

So often I refer to this scripture when things seem bleak.  I recite it to the prisoners, I share it with people I care about.  There are many promises in the bible, but this one is a reality I have found to be true in my life. 

Jeremiah heard from God in this way:  “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for good and not for ill, to give you a future and a hope.  If you search for me with all your heart you will find me and I will change your lot.”

When people ask me how God can do things that seem horrible or how can He let things that are awful happen, I can’t explain all of it.  I don’t think any of us will know exactly what it’s all about until this life on earth is ended.  The thing that makes the most sense to me is that the representatives of humanity, we call them Adam and Eve, did something that was directly a slap in God’s face.  It broke the relationship with a God who was portrayed as walking with them in the twilight.  We humans let evil into the world.  The argument the tempter gave them is that they(Adam and Eve)would be like God if they “ate the fruit,”  they would know about evil.  We certainly did find out about evil. 

Whether we take the idea of evil coming into the world as scripture tells it or not,  it is interesting the Greeks also had a human representative let evil into the world.  Pandora did it for them.  There are other cultures as well that tell similar stories.

What Jeremiah 29: 11 ultimately means to me, and that I have found to be true in many distinct ways, is that when I let God into my life, God provides protection, and when things get rough in this world, there is a place of shelter in Him.  I might have to go through things I don’t like, but I know and feel the strength that God gives me.